I've been thinking this since Path to F2P Blog #10, and unless I missed it, I'm surprised no one else has suggessted it, yet - in fact, I'm posting it because I'm surprised the Devs haven't simply told us this is what they intend to do. When I saw the grid of ships, filled out on the right-hand side with C-Store ships so there would be a ship of every class at every tier available in both in-game and C-Store varieties, I thought it was obvious:
Cryptic just needs to add 3 new VA ships, to fill in the left-hand side, with ships slightly better than the RA ships and not as nice as the VA C-Store ships with their shiny consoles. Then they can give us all our choice of one of the three new ships for free when we reach VA without having to diminish the value of the exisiting VA ships (and of CP in the process).
Easy, peasy, get an artist on that job, stat. People don't like going from getting rewarded with a free ship at every tier to reaching the end of all levels (I win!) and finding there's no free ship waiting there for them, as they've been trained to expect all the way up through the ranks.
Bonus points if you make the "New Enterprise-F" one of the three, so people don't feel like "all the best ships are in the C-Store, why would I want to fly a free ship?"
That isn't reinstating the VA ship token, that's simply replacing the emblems they took out of the 600-day reward with the ship they expected you to buy with the emblems, anyway.
The way things worked out here at Cryptic is that, after the post which was quoted at the start of this thread, we decided that we were definitely not going to re-instate the free Vice Admiral Ship Token for all players. It isn't in the best interest of our business. I know that it is unpopular, but that is the decision we made. And we plan to stick with it.
The posting that was quoted states that our initial thinking was that it was a bad idea to give out the token for all Gold members, and that we were thinking about other options. We explored a number of options for giving out the token, including quite a few clever ones that people on the forums posted. After intense consideration and modeling, we did not find any option that we felt fit out needs. The whole idea of the "exploit" that started our initial thinking (and which I posted about) became just a minor point once we did deeper analysis. So we were planning for there to be no way to get this token any longer.
Then when we were looking at the Veteran Rewards tables for 700+ days, we wanted to fill the hole at 600 days that was created by the Dilithium economy shift. The design team felt that putting the token in at this level would be a way to preserve the token for the most loyal, long term customers without having any substantial number of players getting it. Since we didn't have any other great ideas for something to fill the slot, we went ahead and put it in there.
From this thread, it sounds like the decision isn't popular with everyone. I will have my team discuss the possibility of something else being in the 600 day reward in addition to the token. But I can say that the token won't be getting easier to get than the 600 day mark.
While I don't come with good news this time, I can say that I really respect how you all are fighting to make the game as good as it can be. And I like how constructive you are being in this thread. We are working hard as well, with the same goal of making the game great. We are listening, but we are also looking at the business. If the business side doesn't work, then the game won't get new content and won't grow.
We are using the F2P launch as a reason to invest a lot into STO, and we're looking to grow the game substantially next year with new content, new play options, and so on. Going F2P requires some rethinking, though, of elements of the game. Some of these I think we're doing well on, and other not so much. But we're trying. And I appreciate when you all let us know what you think. It helps us, even when you are not seeing responses like this all the time. Thanks!
Stephen D'Angelo
Executive Producer
Star Trek Online
But that assumes the VA token would reward one of the existing VA ships, which are all (fairly expensive) C-Store ships. As far as I can tell, despite it seeming so obvious to me, the idea of adding 3 news ships has never been considered. Not by the Devs and not by the players ranting and raving about losing their token.
That isn't reinstating the VA ship token, that's simply replacing the emblems they took out of the 600-day reward with the ship they expected you to buy with the emblems, anyway.
No, it isn't. Sorry, the sarcasm was supposed to be obvious.
In any case, while it may be an appropriate fix for the 600-day reward, it's no help to those of us who just hit 300 days...
Comments
http://www.startrekonline.com/node/2678
It's now a 600-day veteran reward. :rolleyes:
No, it isn't. Sorry, the sarcasm was supposed to be obvious.
In any case, while it may be an appropriate fix for the 600-day reward, it's no help to those of us who just hit 300 days...